Why Facebook Lite?

This app is designed to encourage users in the developing countries where mobile data services are limited as compared to the developed countries.

“In many areas, networks can be slow and not able to support all the functionality found in Facebook for Android. Facebook Lite was built for these situations, giving people a reliable Facebook experience when bandwidth is at a minimum,” Vijay Shankar, Product Manager for Facebook Lite, wrote in a blog post.

How to get Facebook Lite?

Facebook Lite is currently launched for Android Devices only. You can download it via the following Google Play Storelink.

For them, in whose country, the app isn’t officially launched yet, can download Facebook Lite from this Google Drivelink.

Differences between Facebook and Facebook Lite

Facebook

Facebook Lite

Size

The size of the original Facebook app varies greatly with devices. But is remains mostly around 27 MB.

The size is greatly reduced. The app only takes about 436 KB of space. For comparison 436 KB = 0.4 MB

Data Consumption

The former app showcased an image rich News Feed as well as Auto – Playing videos; which obviously consumed a lot of data.

Facebook Lite, doesn’t allow users to watch a video. It also compresses images and with many other such techniques, it saves a lot of data. It uses less than a quarter of data as compared to the official Facebook App.

Features

Along with all the features of Facebook Lite. It also features, Saved, Instagram Link, On This Day, Create Groups, Suggest Edits, Help Center, Activity Log, Privacy Shortcuts, Code Generator, Account Settings, Like Pages, Beta Program (Android), Games etc.

Other than browsing profiles and like, share, and comment which are the meaning of Facebook. It features Chat, Photos, Search, Friend, Settings, News Feed, Messages, Notifications, Friend Requests, Pages, Groups, Events, Most Recent, Internet.org Link, Help, and About.

Personal review for FB Lite

Personally, I used it on Abdul’s Micromax Canvas 2 Plus. I will like to mention a few points about Facebook Lite –

After installation, on its first turn, it took about whopping 17.26 seconds to initialize its first run. It ruined its first impression and my expectations about that app. But on second run, it became faster with no more than 2 seconds.

It is best to work with 2G internet network though.

At first, I expected that it will adapt to the internet speed. But it didn’t; that is when I tried it on a WiFi network, it still displayed compressed images instead of HD.

As already said, if you are using Facebook Lite, forget about Videos, or Games.

At less than a MB in size, its worth a try, at least to experience a new data saving Facebook.